Jeremy and Tyrell, both moving in a state of semi-consciousness after having helped me to clean out the garage hours before, sat in the living room with me, yawning self-consciously at a basketball game on the television.  My orphaned rusty-haired eighteen-year-old nephew, and my nephew’s African-American best friend had worked hard.  Harder than anyone would have liked on a Saturday.

            I shifted my position in my armchair, aching from a pulled back muscle.  I uttered a barely audible moan of pain as I eased myself into a reclining position.  Hearing this, both Tyrell and Jeremy turned to me with concerned looks.  I smiled back to assure them that I was fine.  They really were sweet boys.

            Tyrell still looked dubious, but Jeremy flashed a satisfied grin at me.  My rusty-haired nephew’s smile was an exact replica of my rapscallion brother, Stuart’s.  It was rather frightening to see that evil man’s image shining through the visage of my gentle young nephew.  My nephew had also inherited my brother’s big feet.  The big, smelly white feet that I used to sniff as a child once Stuart had drifted off to sleep.  Jeremy had toed off his Nikes while he sat there watching the TV, and I couldn’t help fantasizing about kneeling before his smelly cotton sweat-socks.  I pictured myself peeling those damp socks off my nephew’s rank feet and sniffing them deeply.  Then I pictured myself blissfully bathing his high-arched soles, smooth heels and long toes with my tongue.   

            Then I glanced over at Tyrell.  The eighteen-year-old black high school running back was no longer watching the game or stuffing himself with potato chips.  He was slumped in one corner of the love‑seat, eyes closed, mouth open, breathing deeply and softly.  The snacks and beer he'd consumed, as well as his lack of sleep the night before had put him out.  He hadn’t taken off his shoes, so--in my fantasy--I was kneeling in front of him, untying  and removing his sneakers like a servant, and then worshipfully kissing his smelly socked feet.  Then I would slide off his socks and kiss his bare feet as if I were begging for him to spare my miserable life. 

            Tyrell was my bud.  I always felt a tug in my heart whenever I looked at this sixteen-year-old youth--Rowdy and unconsciously scowling, in worn clothing and black shades, looking as if he drank too much and ate too little.  Still, there was a kind of urbane dignity to him.  His mannerisms were shy and rather uncertain, and when he gazed at me with his dark brown eyes, I saw the quiet longing in them.  The intense hunger for a guiding paternal hand.  He used to suspect that I hated him because he was dating my niece, Heather.  Quite the contrary. . . I was glad that someone finally noticed the inner beauty of that girl.

            "If Heather’s daddy were alive, I'd hope that he wouldn't judge her boyfriend by the way he looks, or his lack of social grace an' stuff."  Tyrell had told me the day before.  He had tried his best to be subtle  "I'd hope that he wouldn't hate him 'cause he thought he wasn't good enough for his daughter."

            And I responded.  "If Heather’s father were still alive, he would treat her boyfriend with all the courtesy he could muster, but his daughter's well-being would always come first.  Rest-assured, he would always try to deal fairly with the young man."

            Tyrell decided to push the envelope by asking, "And if Heather was under the protection of a guy who was actin' as sort of a replacement father, do you think he would treat her boyfriend fairly?"

            I had smiled at the black boy.  "I sure do.  Matter of fact, I think he would love Heather’s boyfriend just as if he were his very own beady-headed, bow-legged son."

            Tyrell had beamed at me. 

            I glanced sideways now.  Jeremy was still looking at the basketball game, but he was beginning to nod and blink at the television screen with glassy blue eyes.  The lines beneath his peepers were as pronounced as Tyrell's.  Proof enough to me that my wife and I should have let both boys sleep in that morning.  They had worked just as hard the night before as they had this morning.  The work was especially unfair to Tyrell.  When Jeremy talked Ty into spending his summer vacaton with us, I bet the lad had no idea that he would waste a perfectly good Saturday hauling garbage and organizing piles of junk.  I wanted to hold both their young sleeping faces in my hands and kiss away the tired lines beneath their eyes.

            I studied Tyrell for a moment, admiring the long lashes lying against his medium brown skin, the angry mouth grown slack with sleep, the strong bone structure of a young man physically aged beyond his years.  And I could smell Tyrell at a distance, for the youth's breath was heavy with Budweiser.  I also imagined that I could smell the odor of his feet eating through his sneakers.  Facing Jeremy again, I wondered what it would be like to lick between his toes.  My nephew had sweet toes—long and well-kept. 

             Tyrell and Jeremy.  Both so incredibly different, and yet I felt something for both of them.  And this "something" usually hoarded-up inside me at the oddest moments.  Tyrell, while consciously trying his best not to curse or use slang terms when he spoke in my presence, often caused this feeling of love to manifest itself within me.  Or my nephew Jeremy--with this incredibly earnest look on his face--going on and on what he was going to do once his quarterbacking talents were finally noticed by a football scout.  It triggered bursts fondness and affection in my heart.

            When I switched off the television channel at the conclusion of the basketball game, both Tyrell and Jeremy were still asleep.  I lowered the volume on the television as I flipped through the stations so as not to awaken them.  When I returned to the living room, after cleaning and replacing the screens on both kitchen windows, I found both boys even more deeply in slumber.  Tyrell was snoring and lay with one leg tossed haphazardly across an arm of the love‑seat he occupied.  Jeremy was upside-down on the sofa, with his legs over the back, his back on the cushions, and his rust-colored head resting on his smelly sneakers which were lying unlaced on the floor.

            As I passed Jeremy’s elevated feet, I took a chance and massaged them.  I kneaded them lovingly and fondled his white-socked toes.  I didn’t suck on his toes then, but I was bold enough to plant a tender kiss on each of my nephew’s socked insteps . . . insteps that were slightly damp with salty sweat!  I wished I could’ve kissed Tyrell’s feet then, but in order for me to reach them (in the precarious position that the boy was sitting in) I would have had to crawl along the floor on my belly. . . like the snake that I am.

            Later I stood in the living room's doorway beside my wife, grinning with half-hearted amusement and undivided love at the two sleeping boys, then I joined her in the kitchen to help prepare lunch.